Thanks for this! I made the same immediate connection the Progress movement, but I'd never have seen the connection to The Fallen. I liked the inclusion of John Galt in the list - I saw it as a wink to the Objectivists, and a solution to people passing up on the value of Rand's work and instead slandering the woman herself.
How is that a solution? People slander her because they hate her ideas, not the other way round. You can’t convince people to be rational by stealth, and to try is an injustice. This is the same mistake conservatives make when they try to rebrand capitalism. People hate capitalism because it’s capitalism. It’s not a branding issue.
Good point. It's not a solution to the general problem of anti-rand. Only a way of avoiding that problem in the replies to his manifesto. I still think "Who is John Galt?" might be a more intriguing seed to plant in the e/acc base than "Read Ayn Rand" because his character is an engineer, and his story is a compelling triumph of an individual over "deceleration."
@@seamusriley4503 I like Smith's definition of capitalism, it is the concentration of wealth at the point of production. This is an idea any engineer can support
Very well thought out discussion. Here is a question that none of us can answer because the person who should provide the answer is long gone; given Ayn Rand’s presentation of the best businessmen and women as great thinkers in Atlas Shrugged, do you think she would be disappointed with the reality, which is that one after the other of my generations great innovators, investors and business operators, Gates, and Buffet to name two notable examples, are utter disappointments in the realm of philosophical thinking. To a man they are a marching column of guilt ridden altruist apologists…
@@Ferdinand208 LOL - I despise the edge but I do enjoy reading microsoft support complaint boards - when they put in icons plane or for calendars, I use chrome but was going to firefox. I prefer my flip phone and my 16 inch laptop My sister had all on hers because she had to update her barns website
@@Rational863I, too, made the Quantum leap. I could not resist a browser named after a hyper-advanced jet fighter: Even if it was a MiG. But a plaine that could be telepathically controlled? That was an offer I could not refuse
Technological progress has been occurring for millions of years, ever since the first primate deliberately picked up a sharp rock and used it as a tool. It's just that technological progress is an accelerating process. Acceleration always starts out very very very slowly, and slowly accelerates. By the time of the Renaissance, European thinkers and creators started noticing their lives were better than their ancestors. Acceleration had picked up enough to be noticeable. By the 18th century, progress became so noticeable that an old man (Ben Frankline) could note how different his life had become as compared to his childhood. Faster and faster. The Industrial Revolution was called such because its effects were noticeable in years, not just in generations. And so on. AI has emerged in months. What will happen when acceleration continues to accelerate? What will we notice in weeks, days, hours, minutes?
This has been the best comment on YT I read in a while. Honestly I rarely comment here. When I stated college, I recall walking into the library to see everyone buried in their laptops-ignoring all the knowledge in the books because they were obsolete; all that knowledges could be stored on their laptops. By the end of college I recall walking on the Diag of the University of Michigan-the main outdoor plaza. As stepped out of the library doors, I looked up to notice nearly every student head down buried in their phones as they whipped around to their classes. It had happed again; all the info on the heavy laptops had become mobile. Now, as I drive 45 min to work I crawl the internet verbally by asking chat GPT questions as if it’s like having a dialogue with Wikipedia. The internet is in my brain giving me thoughts. We are merging our minds.
Since Andressen knows about Ayn Rand and does not promote her, as you have said, then there is one of two things at work here. 1. He is seeding a "bread crumb" path toward her by promoting some of her essays, and mentioning Galt, or 2. he is being dishonest for some cause, either Social Metaphysics or wants to insert himself as the central figure to which she and others point If the first, unless he gets on the stick and puts Rand's work in the equation, he is doomed to fail. IfThe second, he will fail. The probability is that it will fail It is not morality that is the key to any of this. Morality is a product, hence a derivative of, Ethics. So it is not an irriducible primary. However is Ethics an irredicible primary? Rather than answer that directly, let me enable you to answer it, thus making that answer a product of your agency, hence making it authentic to you, hence, making it yours. 1. Ethics, of which morality is the practical implementation, is a brnach of philosophy 2An irredicuble primary, is the limits of a discussion beyond which it goes into another, usually more fundamental topic. In the case of philosophy, "irredicible primary" would be what connects philosophy to the world as such and man in particular Remember "Humanistic Environmentalism"? You don't hear about that any more: Do you? I told you that it was a non-starter and how come. I fear the same for "Techno-Optimism" and for the same cause, albeit different implementations of that cause ADDENDUM: I'm losing it for sure!. The fact that he uses a fictional character while apparenelty ignoring the maker of that character should tell us that he is operating, not on any specific ideas but at the level of his sense of life. Read 'Philosophy and Sense of Life"; THE ROMANTIC MANIFESTO
When Ben says he graduated in the 90s, I still can't believe that. Man does not age.
Thanks for this! I made the same immediate connection the Progress movement, but I'd never have seen the connection to The Fallen.
I liked the inclusion of John Galt in the list - I saw it as a wink to the Objectivists, and a solution to people passing up on the value of Rand's work and instead slandering the woman herself.
How is that a solution? People slander her because they hate her ideas, not the other way round. You can’t convince people to be rational by stealth, and to try is an injustice. This is the same mistake conservatives make when they try to rebrand capitalism. People hate capitalism because it’s capitalism. It’s not a branding issue.
@@infinosimthat's only because people use Marxism to redefine capitalism. Adam Smith was struggling against mercantilism that we now call capitalism
Good point. It's not a solution to the general problem of anti-rand. Only a way of avoiding that problem in the replies to his manifesto. I still think "Who is John Galt?" might be a more intriguing seed to plant in the e/acc base than "Read Ayn Rand" because his character is an engineer, and his story is a compelling triumph of an individual over "deceleration."
@@seamusriley4503 I like Smith's definition of capitalism, it is the concentration of wealth at the point of production. This is an idea any engineer can support
Haven't read him, but at face value I much prefer Randian heroes to the invisible hand as a way of visualizing the source of motive power.
Would like to hear a response from Marc on these points.
Very well thought out discussion. Here is a question that none of us can answer because the person who should provide the answer is long gone; given Ayn Rand’s presentation of the best businessmen and women as great thinkers in Atlas Shrugged, do you think she would be disappointed with the reality, which is that one after the other of my generations great innovators, investors and business operators, Gates, and Buffet to name two notable examples, are utter disappointments in the realm of philosophical thinking. To a man they are a marching column of guilt ridden altruist apologists…
Let's just say. Techno Nietzscheanism. This is not for altruistism, we do this on own interest. We want to reach the stars
Thank you
Lol. I guess I’m one of the nobodies who uses Firefox
There are people that chose their browser. And there are people that use Chrome or Edge.
I still use Firefox for some things
@@Ferdinand208 LOL - I despise the edge but I do enjoy reading microsoft support complaint boards - when they put in icons plane or for calendars, I use chrome but was going to firefox. I prefer my flip phone and my 16 inch laptop
My sister had all on hers because she had to update her barns website
@@Rational863I, too, made the Quantum leap. I could not resist a browser named after a hyper-advanced jet fighter: Even if it was a MiG. But a plaine that could be telepathically controlled? That was an offer I could not refuse
Technological progress has been occurring for millions of years, ever since the first primate deliberately picked up a sharp rock and used it as a tool. It's just that technological progress is an accelerating process. Acceleration always starts out very very very slowly, and slowly accelerates. By the time of the Renaissance, European thinkers and creators started noticing their lives were better than their ancestors. Acceleration had picked up enough to be noticeable. By the 18th century, progress became so noticeable that an old man (Ben Frankline) could note how different his life had become as compared to his childhood. Faster and faster. The Industrial Revolution was called such because its effects were noticeable in years, not just in generations. And so on. AI has emerged in months. What will happen when acceleration continues to accelerate? What will we notice in weeks, days, hours, minutes?
This has been the best comment on YT I read in a while. Honestly I rarely comment here.
When I stated college, I recall walking into the library to see everyone buried in their laptops-ignoring all the knowledge in the books because they were obsolete; all that knowledges could be stored on their laptops.
By the end of college I recall walking on the Diag of the University of Michigan-the main outdoor plaza. As stepped out of the library doors, I looked up to notice nearly every student head down buried in their phones as they whipped around to their classes. It had happed again; all the info on the heavy laptops had become mobile.
Now, as I drive 45 min to work I crawl the internet verbally by asking chat GPT questions as if it’s like having a dialogue with Wikipedia. The internet is in my brain giving me thoughts. We are merging our minds.
Since Andressen knows about Ayn Rand and does not promote her, as you have said, then there is one of two things at work here. 1. He is seeding a "bread crumb" path toward her by promoting some of her essays, and mentioning Galt, or 2. he is being dishonest for some cause, either Social Metaphysics or wants to insert himself as the central figure to which she and others point
If the first, unless he gets on the stick and puts Rand's work in the equation, he is doomed to fail. IfThe second, he will fail. The probability is that it will fail
It is not morality that is the key to any of this. Morality is a product, hence a derivative of, Ethics. So it is not an irriducible primary. However is Ethics an irredicible primary? Rather than answer that directly, let me enable you to answer it, thus making that answer a product of your agency, hence making it authentic to you, hence, making it yours.
1. Ethics, of which morality is the practical implementation, is a brnach of philosophy
2An irredicuble primary, is the limits of a discussion beyond which it goes into another, usually more fundamental topic. In the case of philosophy, "irredicible primary" would be what connects philosophy to the world as such and man in particular
Remember "Humanistic Environmentalism"? You don't hear about that any more: Do you? I told you that it was a non-starter and how come. I fear the same for "Techno-Optimism" and for the same cause, albeit different implementations of that cause
ADDENDUM: I'm losing it for sure!. The fact that he uses a fictional character while apparenelty ignoring the maker of that character should tell us that he is operating, not on any specific ideas but at the level of his sense of life. Read 'Philosophy and Sense of Life"; THE ROMANTIC MANIFESTO
To turn someone into a techno-optimist, all you need to do... Is turn them into a Bitcoiner.